Crysis 2 Preview for Xbox 360

Crysis 2 Preview

Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.

New York's seen better days

My impression is that pretty much everyone loved Crysis' Nanosuit. It granted temporary godlike powers - Speed, Strength, Armour and Cloak - that could be activated via small flicks of a mouse. It was a cool idea that worked brilliantly. But it appears that Crytek is its own harshest critic, because Nathan says it'll work even better in Crysis 2.

Apparently, Crytek noticed three distinct gamer styles developed as fans got to grips with Crysis' open world. One group played like The Predator, using the mobility and stealth of the suit to sneak around the jungle, get really close to enemies, find one guy and then kill him with their bare hands or a short range weapon. The player would then hide, rinse and repeat. "The analogy we use is like a cat playing with his food before he eats it," Nathan says.

Another style involved using binoculars and other long range abilities of the suit with the stealth power. These players would wait until one sheep wandered away from the herd then pick him off with a sniper rifle or medium ranged weapon. For these gamers, the most important thing was to avoid detection.

Last but not least is the super hero style. These players would use mobility and armour to survive a flurry of bullets, grenades and even tanks as they punched up huts and trees with their fists. This was a brute force approach, but some of the more skilled players turned it into a sort of finesse style of gaming, thrill seeking and always living on the verge of death.

Crytek won't talk about multiplayer, but we do know that Crytek UK is working solely on it.

Crytek made the decision fairly early on in development to focus on these gamer styles, a decision which, according to Nathan, makes the addition of new suit powers pointless. "The powers that were there were really good," he says. "But we noticed that they weren't as refined and accessible as they needed to be." The upshot of all of this is that none of the powers have been taken away. Instead, Crytek has refined the way you can use the old powers to make gamer styles "come to the surface faster".

An example: in Crysis, strength made you jump higher and punch harder. Players used speed to sprint, maintained that momentum, then quickly switched to strength to do a long, vertical leap. You couldn't use the two powers at the same time, making the manoeuvre proper hard, or, as Nathan puts it, "hard to find". "We said, well hey, people want to be more mobile, let's give it to them all the time."

Sounds very good. Shame about the 2011 release date I wouldn't of minded to be released this year lol. Hopefullly at E3 they can show this demo so I can see for myself on how Crysis 2 has progressed from Crysis.

Posted 09:34 on 17 May 2010

K3RT

I must admit after watching the trailer the other week I thought it looked good but after reading the preview this has shot right up on my list of games to watch.